Leela took a bath. Happily. With toys. It was epic. I took everyone's advice - we had a dance party to drown out the sound of the tub being filled, we only went in to the bathroom once it was quiet, I kept the lights off so it was very dim, and we kept the water at a mild temperature. We held her outside the tub with me inside, and played with her with her toys, we waited until she wanted to try the water, and then put her in, and just basically followed her lead and took her out before she showed any signs of being upset. She seemed completely happy and not overwhelmed. I am hoping that this is a turning point for her. Plus, it was really fun bathing with her!

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Ariann, that is one of my most favorite baby developments ever. I loved watching my toddlers in childcare get all excited and saying their own names when we looked at pictures. Good stuff.

Yay for bathtime! Freya went through a phase for about 3 weeks where she got upset during every bath, but thankfully it seems to have passed. She's loved them since she could sit well, so I was going to be really disappointed. This last bath, only tears came when it was time to get out! :)

Oh man! Leela took a bath! Congrats T... I know she's been resistant to them for like forever.

As soon as I posted saying M wasn't saying any words, he started saying a few. Yesterday we were at a park and a dog would go by, he'd point and shout DAH-EEEE and laugh. Of course, it sounds pretty much the same as when he says "daddy" so mayyyybe he's a little confused.

Today like 20 minutes after my partner left for work, M ran to the window we always wave to solipsistnation from, and started waving frantically while going "DAH-eee? DAH-eeee?" in the most concerned tone. Hilarious, and a little sad.

I am amazed whenever I hear babies speak. Watching them be able to communicate is just the best. Malka said "Baby" so clearly today, you just couldn't misunderstand. Leela is mostly unclear syllables with emphasis Da! (dog), Da! (duck), Da! (Dad), Da! (there) and Ho! (hot), Ha! (hat), Ba! (ball) and Uh (up)!

And today, Leela just put two signs together. Of course they were "eat" and "more" because she saw me surreptitiously snarfing a Luna bar.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Babies starting to talk is the best! Miles says words now in both English and Italian and I love it. I'm trying to get him to say his name but he just pounds his chest like an ape and says Mama instead of Miles. The other day he said "Bye bye Dada" and I nearly died. Today he said "Mommy" instead of "Mama". It took Reno ages to start calling me "Mommy" this kid does it at 1 1/2 now...he does have his big sister to look up to.

Other Miles milestones: He can open doors now which isn't good. He is copying his Dad's Capoeira moves which is the most awesome thing ever. He loves listening to music and dancing along. He thinks all animals make the "Grrrrr" sound. He is still a great eater...gotten picky with some things...but I'll take it.

Reno updates: Kindergarten is going really well for her. She is learning to read and spell. Growing up so fast. Her pickiness with food stage has pretty much ended. She tries to be picky but we just say "EAT IT!" and she does without much complaint. (we only do that with foods we know she will like).

Yay for everyone's language development! It really is so cool to see it progress. Ada is saying so many words. Tonight she said "kisses" really clear. And she's starting to put two words together. So she'll say "mama shoes" if she wants me to put my shoes on. Yesterday we were watching yo gabba gabba (it was a loooong day with no nap and a 4 something wake up) and she heard "one two three four" and she shouted "five". She did the same thing again when a song went "one two three" and she went "four" after. Later she said "three" after a "one two". Of course I've been trying to get her to count today and its not happening :-)Oh and I think her second set of molars are starting to make their way up. She has been super fussy and chewing on things. Then when I was trying to get her to sleep she bit my fingers so I tried to feel in the back and she just gummed my finger. I'm pretty sure I felt the bottom bulging a little. I guess better now than when the new baby is here!

We made a list and I think Malka knows between 2 and 3 dozen words. She's done several two-word phrases like "Bye Daddy" "Hi dog" "no mommy." Her enunciation is mostly really good (words that end in "k" she sometimes gets lazy on - she can say duck, sock, honk, etc. really clearly, but sometimes she'll say "ka" in place of all of them). I think today she was saying "The baby."

I think she only knows one Hebrew word ("boi" - come as a command directed to a girl/woman), which is a bit of a bummer. I'm getting more doubtful about my ability to teach her Hebrew since my husband doesn't speak it - she's going to learn all of the feminine verbs and none of the masculine ones, which will be weird.

Leela had a gassy fussiness from about 3 wks to 6 wks (I think). I cut soy out of my diet and did blockfeeding to cut down on oversupply and used the hold where they're tummy down on your forearm a lot and it helped. She also just aged out of it in part, as her gut matured.

Well, I came to this conclusion because, he wont sleep more than 20mins at a time during the day, and I have to always hold him. When I try to put him down, he cries/screams. DH cant even take him. He's very gassy (both ends... he hiccups and burps a lot too), he has runny and stringy poops that I don't think look normal, he is not a very happy content baby like Samuel was, and his face is full of these little bumps which I thought were baby acne related but they go away and come back randomly. So I think its something else... aka dairy/soy. His breath stinks too.. and he spits up at every feed. Not much, but always.

About the being vegan and dairy thing... I've slipped quite a few times on the dairy and I noticed how bad it got him to be. Starting today, no more. We shall see if it'll help.

_________________~SARAH~

“I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.”

That sounds a lot like grey when he was little. I cut out dairy and chocolate and it helped but didn't solve it. Grey has always been strong willed and he wants to be with me and moving. Now that he can walk he is happy sort of the time, but he is still pretty clingy. I think I tried every variation on diet I could think of and for him, it was just his personality!

Sierra had her 6month dr appointment this morning (a few weeks late) and well, she's just growing so slowly! We'd been guessing that she'd gained a ton in the past 7 weeks because she just seemed heavier but meh, she's hovering right around 12.5 lbs which means just a little over a pound gained in almost 2 months. I'm thankful that the dr didn't freak out like he did at her 3 month appointment but kind of blaming myself (or my milk supply I should say). Especially because there was a 3 week period in there where she was exclusively nursing since we were traveling/I was home from work and I don't know, she never seemed like wildly hungry so I guess I did ok but I feel like I'm failing somehow.

She is right around 24inches long, so she's growing one way at least though. And we've been looking and looking for signs of teeth and the dr ran his finger over her bottom guns and pointed out to me that there's a razor sharp area there so we can expect something to poke through very soon. I'll admit, I've been happy she didn't get teeth early like Dahlia because I am not looking forward to being bit at all!

Audrey, are you and Howard built long and lean? From your pictures, Dahlia seems pretty slender too, so maybe that's just the way your babies are? Also, they talk a lot here about "following your curve". That is, if the kiddo's staying relatively in the same percentile, even if it's high/low, then they're probably okay.

If you want to read more/have some fun re: language development, you can visit Univ. of Oxford's Babylab site: http://babylab.psy.ox.ac.uk/research/oxford-cdi The CDI inventory is online now and you can check to see how many words your baby recognizes/uses. There are loads of interesting links about language research too. I went here with Baby G when she was small and participated in some projects. Very cool stuff!

Leela has been signing when she needs to pee or poop. So we've been able to change her right after she pees or poops, and then we put her on the potty and praised her. But today she brought her potty over, Brett took her diaper off and she peed in the potty.

I am kind of amazed and in awe. I know this doesn't mean she'll be toilet trained any time soon, but it does make me (1) sad that she isn't a baby any more and (2) hopeful that toilet training can be easy and uneventful for us.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Oh wow! Go Leela! I have had a potty in my amazon cart for a few weeks. I really need to actually order it. Ada isn't really showing signs of being ready but I figure we should at least give it a shot.

Dude, she BROUGHT him the potty, like walked over with it in her hands and gave it to him, then had him take off her diaper and then PEED IN THE POTTY! It was epic and we clapped so loud she seemed so proud.

Before that she had struggled out of her own diaper and then proudly pooped on the floor :) Getting it in the potty was a nice improvement over that :)

Yay for potty learning!

ETA: sashi, what are the signs of being ready? I was told not to try to potty train too early, and we're not going to do more than just have potties available on both floors that she can use if she wants to. I had thought I could wait for a few more months before learning about this stuff.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I'm in the same boat, Tofulish. Hopeful but confused about what to do next. Walter has started pooping and/or peeing in the potty first thing in the morning, and sometimes at other times of day he asks to try. He can say potty, poop, pants, diaper. I feel like I could get proactive now, at least with poop. I don't think he knows when he's peeing, and he's certainly not bothered by a wet diaper.

Leela tried to eat my boob with a spoon. We had lunch and then she sat on my lap, pulled my shirt up and put my nipple in the spoon and kept trying to get it to her mouth. Then she gave up and just smacked the spoon around for a while.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Dude....going in the potty is way cool. If she knows when she's going, then it's a good time to explore the potty. If the kiddos don't really notice wet diapers (poop is another issue altogether), then it's likely to be a bit harder, but even if they only play with the potty, then it's building up good memories yeah?